Supreme Court upholds appointment of Gujarat's Lokayukta

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed Gujarat government's plea challenging governor Kamla Beniwal's decision to appoint Justice (retd) R A Mehta as Lokayukta without consulting it.

Gujarat government had challenged the appointment on the grounds that the governor Kamala Beniwal had not consulted the state government.

A bench of Justices B S Chauhan and F M Ibrahim Kalifulla passed the order on the state's appeal against the order of the Gujarat high court which had upheld the governor's decision last January.

The high court's verdict had been delivered by Justice V M Sahai after a division bench gave a split judgement on the legitimacy of the governor's action in Justice Mehta's appointment as Lokayukta.

Justice Sahai, who decided the matter as a third judge, had also pulled up Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for creating a constitutional crisis and held that the governor had the discretionary power to make the appointment. He had said the "pranks" played by the chief minister on the Lokayukta issue "demonstrates deconstruction of our democracy."

Challenging the high court's order, the state government had contended that the personal discretion exercised by the governor in unilaterally issuing the warrant of appointment of Lokayukta was "unwarranted."

Read More..

Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

Read More..

House Approves 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

The House of Representatives has approved a bipartisan Senate deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" and preserve Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans making less than $400,000 per year.

The compromise is now on its way to President Obama for his signature.

"I will sign a law that raises taxes on the wealthiest two percent of Americans while preventing a middle class tax hike that could have sent the economy back into recession and obviously had a severe impact on families all across America," said Obama, who was joined by his top negotiator, Vice President Joe Biden, for late-night televised remarks after the House vote.

"Under this law, more than 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses will not see their income taxes go up," he added. "A central premise of my campaign for president was to change the tax code that was too skewed towards the wealthy at the expense of working middle-class Americans."

House Republicans agreed to the up-or-down vote Tuesday evening, despite earlier talk of trying to amend the Senate bill with more spending cuts before taking a vote. The bill delays for two months tough decisions about automatic spending cuts that were set to kick in Wednesday.

A majority of the Republicans in the GOP-majority House voted against the fiscal cliff deal. About twice as many Democrats voted in favor of the deal compared to Republicans. One hundred fifty-one Republicans joined 16 Democrats to vote against the deal, while 172 Democrats carried the vote along with 85 Republicans.

The Senate passed the same bill by an 89-8 vote in the wee hours of New Year's Day. If House Republicans had tweaked the legislation, there would have been no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.

The vote split Republican leaders in the House. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, voted yes, and so did the GOP's 2012 vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the No. 2 Republican in the House, voted no. It was his opposition that had made passage of the bill seem unlikely earlier in the day.

The deal does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."

Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- sets up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

Bill Clark/Roll Call/Getty Images

'Fiscal Cliff' Negotiations: Congress Reaches Agreement Watch Video

"Now the focus turns to spending," said Boehner in a statement after the vote. "The American people re-elected a Republican majority in the House, and we will use it in 2013 to hold the president accountable for the 'balanced' approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt."

President Obama also seemed to be looking forward to the next debate.

"This is one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy for everybody," Obama said.

Obama lamented that earlier attempts at a much larger fiscal deal that would have cut spending and dealt with entitlement reforms failed. He said he hoped future debates would be done with "a little less drama, a little less brinksmanship, and not scare folks quite as much."

But Obama drew a line in the sand on the debt ceiling, which is set to be reached by March.

"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether they should pay the bills for what they've racked up," Obama said. "We can't not pay bills that we've already incurred."

Republicans hope that allowing the fiscal cliff compromise, which raised taxes without an equal amount of spending cuts, will settle the issue of tax rates for the coming debates on spending.

However, getting the deal done wasn't easy. Before deciding on the up-or-down vote in the House on the fiscal cliff deal, GOP leaders had emerged from a morning conference meeting disenchanted by the legislative package devised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Mo., and Vice President Biden early this morning, with several insisting they could not vote on it as it stood.

"I do not support the bill," Cantor said as he left the meeting. "We're looking for the best path forward. No decisions have been made yet."

Boehner refused to comment on the meeting, but his spokesman said, "The lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today's meeting."

As lawmakers wrestled with the legislation, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill's added spending combined with the cost of extending tax cuts for those making under $400,000 would actually add $3.9 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The Joint Committee on Taxation reached a similar conclusion.

The impasse once again raised the specter of sweeping tax hikes on all Americans and deep spending cuts' taking effect later this week.

"This is all about time, and it's about time that we brought this to the floor," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said after emerging from a meeting with Democrats.

"It was a bill that was passed in the U.S. Senate 89-8. Tell me when you've had that on a measure as controversial as this?" she said of the overwhelming vote.

Pelosi could not say, however, whether the measure had the backing of most House Democrats.

"Our members are making their decisions now," she said.

Biden joined Democrats for a midday meeting on Capitol Hill seeking to shore up support for the plan.

While Congress technically missed the midnight Dec. 31 deadline to avert the so-called cliff, both sides expressed eagerness to enact a post-facto fix before Americans went back to work and the stock market opened Wednesday.

"This may take a little while but, honestly, I would argue we should vote on it today," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who sits on the Budget Committee, early Tuesday. "We know the essential details and I think putting this thing to bed before the markets is important.

"We ought to take this deal right now and we'll live to fight another day, and it is coming very soon on the spending front."

Read More..

North Korean leader, in rare address, seeks end to confrontation with South

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.

The address by Kim, who took over power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers.

Impoverished North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December that it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.

North Korea, which considers North and South as one country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.

"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south," Kim said in the address that appeared to be pre-recorded and was made at an undisclosed location.

"The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war."

The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers.

The two Koreas have seen tensions rise to the highest level in decades after the North bombed a Southern island in 2010 killing two civilians and two soldiers.

The sinking of a South Korean navy ship earlier that year was blamed on the North but Pyongyang has denied it and accused Seoul of waging a smear campaign against its leadership.

Last month, South Korea elected as president Park Geun-hye, a conservative daughter of assassinated military ruler Park Chung-hee whom Kim Il-sung had tried to kill at the height of their Cold War confrontation.

Park has vowed to pursue engagement with the North and called for dialogue to build confidence but has demanded that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, something it is unlikely to do.

Conspicuously absent from Kim's speech was any mention of the nuclear arms program.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Read More..

Thousands to march against Hong Kong leader

HONG KONG: Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to rally in Hong Kong Tuesday, calling for the city's embattled new chief executive to quit and for greater democracy.

Organisers are expecting 50,000 people to turn up at the New Year day's march against Leung Chun-ying, while pro-government groups staged a separate and smaller rival rally in support of the Beijing-backed leader.

Since taking office in July, Leung's popularity ratings have tumbled and he has faced a no-confidence vote in the legislature amid a row over illegal structures at his luxury home -- a politically sensitive issue in the city.

Leung has acknowledged and apologised for the structures, which were built without planning permission and include a wooden trellis and a glass enclosure.

He became chief executive after his rival to the post, Henry tang, was brought down by a row over illegal structures at his home.

Protesters have used the scandal to press for universal suffrage in choosing the leader of the former British colony, which was returned to Beijing in 1997 but maintains a semi-autonomous status.

Leung was elected by a 1,200-strong election committee packed with a pro-Beijing elite in March, amid rising anger among the city's seven million inhabitants over what many perceive to be China meddling in local affairs.

Beijing has said the city's chief executive could be directly elected in 2017 at the earliest, with the legislature following by 2020.

"We want to push for Leung's resignation to further push for democratic elections in Hong Kong," Jackie Hung, a spokeswoman for protest organiser Civil Human Rights Front, told AFP ahead of the march through the streets to the government headquarters, due to start at 3pm (0700 GMT).

About 4,000 pro-government supporters held a separate rally ahead of the mass demonstration, chanting "support CY (Leung), support the government".

Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions honorary president Cheng Yiu-tong said: "We get together today to support the government in developing the economy, better the lives of people. This is the wish of all Hong Kong people."

In a bid to tackle discontent, Leung has banned mainland women from giving birth in Hong Kong and introduced policies to prioritise housing for locals, a move analysts say was a reaction to mainland buyers pushing up prices in the city, one of the world's most expensive.

The city's South China Morning Post newspaper said about 1,000 police will be deployed for Tuesday's marches, following scuffles over the weekend at a pro-government rally that saw two journalists assaulted.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

2012: Non-events

WALL STREET 'UNLIKES' FACEBOOK Facebook's looming IPO was the most hyped stock offering of the year, breathless coverage leading up to the big day in mid-May. But when the price of a share was set at $38 - which led to the company being valued over $100bn with revenues of just $3.7bn - the offering flopped. The firm's value fell by 28% and its shares are trading somewhere near $25.

LETTING GO OF THE PAJAMAS After Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman gracefully hung up their boots this year, attention turned to 39-year-old Sachin Tendulkar. A string of test failures only added to the pressure and after a few months of 'will-he-won't-he', the maestro announced a retirement. Well, kind of. While he may have played this one with soft hands, by quitting ODI arena, many still await big doosra sometime next year.

NO WAY UP FOR THE CONGRESS Over the last few years, the Congress, led by its princeling, Rahul Gandhi, had been telling the world that it was in the process of 'revitalising' itself in UP, its former political karmabhoomi. Rahul and his advisers led protests, staged big rallies and toured the state in the run-up to polls this year. But when the party was handed a drubbing, party leaders scrambled to defend the heir. Heads rolled, chins sagged and the usual infighting broke out, some leaders accusing others of sabotaging the party's grand strategy. Pollsters wondered what strategy they were referring to.

US ELECTIONS: THE TIE THAT WASN'T In an 'election year' the White House's next occupant was America's big obsession for most of the year. Much of that had to do with every pundit worth his morning decaf mouthing some variation of the line that the race between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama was either "too close to call" or going "right down to the wire". Some predicted a tie, with a messy mixed presidential outcome to follow. In the end, Obama won.

THE T-WORD For many in Telangana, the centre dithers, it would seem, while AP burns. When the agitation for a separate state gathered momentum towards the end of last year, the home ministry made conciliatory noises and several predicted that 2012 would see the birth of Telangana, with a compromise on the tricky Hyderabad issue. Nothing happened, and as angry protesters break barricades this week, the current HM appears to be making the right kind of noises, again. Now for 2013.

IT WAS ALL MAYA Like Mark Twain, the world can't get enough of the fact that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, time and again. Based on some pseudo-scientific twaddle — which apparently revealed the 'discovery' of an ancient Mayan prediction that the world would end when the Mayan calendar 'ran out' on December 21, 2012 — a veritable crescendo of doomsday hype echoed all around the globe this year. It proved to be the year's most irksome non-event.

THE AVENGERS DISSEMBLE
After the hiding the Indian cricket team received in England last year, several pundits swore that 2012 would see them have their revenge, when England would arrive in India. A confident Indian outfit looked forward to decimating the tourists. But a determined English outfit came, swept and conquered. They piled on the humiliation exposing the Indian batting as the one actually susceptible to quality spin, which has left the Indian cricketing establishment in, well, quite a spin.

Read More..

Clinton's blood clot an uncommon complication

The kind of blood clot in the skull that doctors say Hillary Rodham Clinton has is relatively uncommon but can occur after an injury like the fall and concussion the secretary of state was diagnosed with earlier this month.

Doctors said Monday that an MRI scan revealed a clot in a vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind Clinton's right ear.

The clot did not lead to a stroke or neurological damage and is being treated with blood thinners, and she will be released once the proper dose is worked out, her doctors said in a statement.

Clinton has been at New York-Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, when the clot was diagnosed during what the doctors called a routine follow-up exam. At the time, her spokesman would not say where the clot was located, leading to speculation it was another leg clot like the one she suffered behind her right knee in 1998.

Clinton had been diagnosed with a concussion Dec. 13 after a fall in her home that was blamed on a stomach virus that left her weak and dehydrated.

The type of clot she developed, a sinus venous thrombosis, "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said neurologist Dr. Larry Goldstein. He is director of Duke University's stroke center and has no role in Clinton's care or personal knowledge of it.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull — it's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein explained.

It should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, he said.

Dr. Joseph Broderick, chairman of neurology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, also called Clinton's problem "relatively uncommon" after a concussion.

He and Goldstein said the problem often is overdiagnosed. They said scans often show these large "draining pipes" on either side of the head are different sizes, which can mean blood has pooled or can be merely an anatomical difference.

"I'm sure she's got the best doctors in the world looking at her," and if they are saying she has no neurological damage, "I would think it would be a pretty optimistic long-term outcome," Broderick said.

A review article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 describes the condition, which more often occurs in newborns or young people but can occur after a head injury. With modern treatment, more than 80 percent have a good neurologic outcome, the report says.

In the statement, Clinton's doctors said she "is making excellent progress and we are confident she will make a full recovery. She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff."

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://dura.stanford.edu/Articles/Stam_NEJM05.pdf

Read More..

Fiscal Cliff Deal Vote Likely in Senate

The so-called "fiscal cliff" came tonight -- but now there is a specific deal on the table to try to soften it after the fact, according to congressional sources.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the deal -- brokered by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- would get a vote in the Senate sometime after midnight. The House would not vote before Tuesday afternoon at the earliest, sources said.

"I feel really very, very good about this vote," Biden told reporters leaving the meeting with Senate Democrats, "but having been in the Senate for as long as I have there's two things you shouldn't do: You shouldn't predict how the Senate is going to vote before they vote....[and] you surely shouldn't predict about how the House is going to vote."

The proposal would extend Bush-era tax cuts permanently for people making less than $400,000 per year and households making less than $450,000, the sources said.

The steep "sequester" budget cuts scheduled to go into effect with the New Year would be postponed two months, said sources. They said half the money would come from cuts elsewhere, and the other half from new revenue.

The deal also would affect taxes on investment income and estates, and extend unemployment benefits for a year, the congressional sources added.

"The end is in sight," said a Democratic aide with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office. "If everyone cooperates, it's possible things can move pretty quickly."

After the Biden meeting, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said there was "strong" support for the plan among Senate Democrats.

"There is a feeling that it's not that this proposal is regarded as great or as loved in any way, but it's a lot better than going off the cliff," he said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the compromise the "best" that could be done.

Even with progress in the Senate tonight, the "cliff" deadline will pass without action by the House, where Republican leaders said they would "consider" the deal starting tomorrow.

'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video

"Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation," said House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers in a statement.

The failure of a deal to pass Congress by Jan. 1 technically triggers an income tax hike on all Americans and automatic spending cuts, though lawmakers could still prevent a tax hike by making retroactive any legislation that passes in the weeks ahead, experts said.

The deal at hand will not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff," however. In fact, it could set up a new showdown over the same spending cuts in just two months that would be amplified by a brewing fight over how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

Earlier, during a midday news conference, Obama said he was optimistic about compromise in the short-term.

"It appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight, but it's not done," he said. "There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done."

In addition to extending current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less, the latest plan would raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the alternative minimum tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Capital gains taxes would rise to 20 percent from 15, according to a senior White House official.

The deal would also extend for one year unemployment insurance benefits set to expire Tuesday, and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors, congressional sources said.

"I can report that we've reached an agreement on the all the tax issues," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an afternoon speech on the Senate floor.

At the time, McConnell said that federal spending cuts remained a sticking point. That hurdle later appeared to be cleared by postponing the debate two more months, though it is unclear whether House Republicans will go along.

"In order to get the sequester moved, you're going to have to have real, concrete spending cuts," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Without that, he said, "I don't know how it passes the House."

Some Republicans also said Obama unduly complicated progress toward an agreement by seeming to take a victory lap on taxes at his campaign-style event at the White House.

"Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans," Obama said, raising the ire of several Republicans. "Obviously, the agreement that's currently discussed would raise those rates, and raise them permanently."

Those words drew a sharp retort from Republican Sen. John McCain.

Rather than staging a "cheerleading rally," McCain said, the president should have been negotiating the finishing touches of the deal.

"He comes out and calls people together and has a group standing behind him, laughs and jokes and ridicules Republicans. Why?" said McCain.

Several Democrats also voiced disappointment with the president and the emerging deal.

Read More..

Chavez suffers new post-surgery complications

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering more complications linked to a respiratory infection that hit him after his fourth cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president said in a somber broadcast on Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba to visit Chavez in the hospital as supporters' fears grew for the ailing 58-year-old socialist leader, who has not been seen in public nor heard from in three weeks.

Chavez had already suffered unexpected bleeding caused by the six-hour operation on December 11 for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area. Officials said doctors then had to fight a respiratory infection.

"Just a few minutes ago we were with President Chavez. He greeted us and he himself talked about these complications," Maduro said in the broadcast, adding that the third set of complications arose because of the respiratory infection.

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is confronting this difficult situation."

Maduro, flanked by his wife Attorney-General Cilia Flores, Chavez's daughter Rosa Virginia and her husband, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said he would remain in Havana while Chavez's condition evolved.

He said Chavez's condition remained "delicate" - a term he has used since the day after the surgery, when he warned Venezuelans to prepare for difficult times and urged them to keep the president in their prayers.

"We trust that the avalanche of love and solidarity with Comandante Chavez, together with his immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists, will help our president win this new battle," Maduro said.

A senior government official in Caracas said the New Year's Eve party in the capital's central Plaza Bolivar had been canceled. "Everyone pray for strength for our comandante to overcome this difficult moment," the official, Jacqueline Faria, added on Twitter after making the announcement.

OIL-FINANCED SOCIALISM

Chavez's resignation for health reasons, or his death, would upend politics in the OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

His condition is being closely watched around Latin America, especially in other nations run by leftist governments, from Cuba to Bolivia, which depend on subsidized fuel shipments and other aid from Venezuela for their fragile economies.

Chavez has not provided details of the cancer that was first diagnosed in June 2011, leading to speculation among Venezuela's 29 million people and criticism from opposition leaders.

Chavez's allies have openly discussed the possibility that he may not be able to return to Venezuela to be inaugurated for his third six-year term as president on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Senior "Chavista" officials have said the people's wishes were made clear when the president was re-elected in October, and that the constitution makes no provision for what happens if a president-elect cannot take office on January 10.

Opposition leaders say any postponement would be just the latest sign that Chavez is not in a fit state to govern and that new elections should be called to choose his replacement. If Chavez had to step down, new elections would be called within 30 days.

Opposition figures believe they have a better shot against Maduro, who was named earlier this month by Chavez as his heir apparent, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

Any constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era in the country that boasts the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Maduro has become the face of the government in Chavez's absence, imitating the president's bombastic style and sharp criticism of the United States and its "imperialist" policies.

In Sunday's broadcast, Maduro said Chavez sent New Year greetings to all Venezuelans, "especially the children, whom he carries in his heart always."

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Mario Naranjo; Editng by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

Read More..

S'pore stocks close lower

SINGAPORE: Share prices in Singapore closed lower in line with other regional markets in a shortened pre-holiday session.

Markets were weighed down by the US fiscal deadlock, as hopes faded that a deal will be reached just a day before the deadline.

The Straits Times Index fell 24.72 points, or 0.77 per cent, to end at 3,167.08.

On the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers by 216 to 175.

Volume totalled 1.54 billion shares valued at S$957.6 million.

Among the declining issues, Great Eastern dropped 18 cents to $15.66, DBS lost 14 cents S$14.84, and SIA also moved down 14 cents to finish at S$10.75.

Ramba Energy rose 21.5 cents to 60 cents, Venture added 6 cents to S$8.06, while City Developments gained 4 cents to S$12.87.

- CNA/al

Read More..